Ionospheric convection response to changing IMF direction

By combining ground-based and satellite-based measurements of ionospheric electric fields, conductivities and magnetic perturbations, it was possible to examine the characteristics of instantaneous, ionospheric convection patterns associated with changing directions of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). In response to a rapid southward-to-northward turning of the IMF on July 23, 1983, the ionospheric convection reconfigured over a period of 40 minutes. The configuration changed from a conventional two-cell pattern to a contracted four-cell pattern, with reversed convection cells in the high-latitude dayside, associated with a strong potential drop of about 75 kV. Later, in response to a gradual rotation of the IMF from the +Z through the -Y toward the -Z direction, the nightside cells disappeared and the dawn cell in the reversed pair wrapped around and displaced the dusk cell until a conventional two-cell pattern was reestablished, largely in accord with the qualitative model of Crooker (1988). The results suggest that multiple cells can arise as a result of strong southward to northward transitions in the IMF. They appear to persist for sometime thereafter.